Gone are the days when parents could send their children to public school with a few classroom supplies and some lunch money.

Strapped school district budgets, caused by dwindling state and federal dollars, are forcing parents to dig deeper into their pockets as more school systems in Colorado and across the country turn to student fees to maintain services and programs.

Want to play sports? That could cost up to $130 at Adams 12 Five Star Schools.

Taking an advanced-placement class? You could pay up to $189 in fees at Jefferson County Public Schools.

Need to ride the bus to school? An annual transportation pass in the Douglas County School District is $150.

The fees pile up quickly for Lisa Ramsey, who has four children at Adams 12.

Ramsey, a social worker, said despite a monthly payment plan, she and her husband owe $600 in past-due fees for services and items including transportation, textbooks, physical-education uniforms and advanced courses.

“It’s very frustrating since we pay taxes, too,” Ramsey said. “I am very pro-public education. I certainly don’t mind putting money toward the school because we have cut it so much, but I am having a tough time figuring out why this is all coming back on us.”

Adams 12 officials said unpaid fees of up to $250 for one student or $500 per family could wind up in collections. Students who do not pay fees would graduate but not be allowed to participate in the ceremony, and while the district cannot stop children from registering, some students could be kept from early enrollment, officials said.

State law gives school districts the authority to collect fees as long as those fees do not interfere with a child’s constitutional right to a free public education.

Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, said the practice of charging fees for programs and services has grown over the past few years because of the loss of state and federal funding stemming from the economic downturn. Domenech said reversing the trend will be difficult because even this year school districts had to contend with automatic federal spending cuts through sequestration.

“The way back is obviously going to be dependent on an economic recovery,” Domenech said.

A review of mandatory and optional fees imposed by Colorado’s six largest school districts suggests that costs for parents and students could include up to $45 for textbooks and instructional materials in Adams 12, $67 for a fire-science class in Douglas County and up to $80 for a high school art class in Jefferson County.

At Jefferson County Public Schools, students could be required to pay up to $130 for workbooks and other consumable items in a high school math class and up to $75 in a high school science class. District officials said textbooks are free to students, but parents have to pay for items such as workbooks. Officials said classroom copies of workbooks are available for students who cannot afford the fees.

“In times of budgetary reductions, we do look to what the needs and wants of our students in our community are, and we have had to look at fees as ways to continue the level of service that our community, parents and students want,” said Jefferson County Public Schools chief financial officer Lorie Gillis.

Jefferson County Public Schools, the state’s largest school district with more than 85,000 students, collected $19 million in mandatory and optional school fees last year, and the district’s charter schools brought in about $4.7 million.

Cindy Vaughan-Sanger, whose daughter is a senior in the Jefferson County School District, said she paid more than $350 in extra fees this year for art supplies, certain books and parking.

“I even have to buy some of her textbooks,” Vaughan said. “I have to buy some of the books that she reads for English class and stuff like that. They say that they’ll have a few classroom copies, but they don’t have enough to go around.”

Shawna Fritzler, whose 8-year-old daughter attends school in Jefferson County, said the money she has paid in fees for items such as art supplies and writing workbooks has been reasonable.

“It’s really just a matter of school funding,” Fritzler said. “I wish there were money to go around to pay for not just the fees but all kinds of extracurricular activities that the kids need or deserve like keyboarding or workbooks — but that’s not realistic under the funding that we have now.”

The Cherry Creek School District collected fees for athletics and parking that totaled about $976,000 last year. The school district of more than 53,000 students does not charge for transportation, a fee that many of its counterparts have implemented.

“We really try to make public education public — and we try to find that reasonable place,” said Scott Siegfried, an associate superintendent at Cherry Creek. “It’s really purposeful. When you think of school supplies and fees, we try to keep it as low as possible.”

The Douglas County School District eliminated its technology fee this year.

Some school districts have adopted fees to provide extra elective courses such as jewelry making or a fire-science class for students who want to become firefighters. But some school districts are also charging fees for certain materials in advanced placement, foreign language and social studies courses.

Each school district has policies that exempt students who qualify for free and reduced lunch from paying such fees. Any other exemption would be considered by campuses on an individual basis, according to district officials.

Michael Griffith, a school finance consultant at the nonprofit Education Commission of the States, said the implementation of fees at school districts could lead to greater concerns over equity and access. Griffith said the exemptions by school districts don’t take into account families that do not meet the income threshold to qualify for free and reduced lunch.

A family of four must earn $30,615 or less to qualify for free lunch or up to $43,568 to get reduced-priced lunch.

“The kids who are most hurt by this are those kids who aren’t low-enough income to qualify for free or reduced lunch but are still low-income kids,” Griffith said. “If you are that parent, you don’t have the money to spend a couple hundred dollars for your kids on fees.”

California passed a law last year generally banning schools from charging fees for classroom items and activities in response to a lawsuit that the state settled with the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU said the fees violated state law that guaranteed children a free public education.

Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, said questions can be raised about whether the fees implemented by some local school districts violate the state’s guarantee to a free education.

“As far as I can tell, in Colorado the state constitution provides for a free public education, not a fee public education,” Silverstein said. “It’s almost as though some school districts got a flawed copy of the state constitution and the ‘R’ was missing.”

Vaughan-Sanger said she worries that the push for parents to pay fees could be preventing children from participating in sports or other activities.

“It’s getting to the point where it is going to separate the haves and have-nots, and that doesn’t seem right to me,” she said.

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